Thread: new unicode table border styles for psql

>YES!

+1

I should to appen list of new styles to doc. Style double6 doesnt exist, because I renamed double5 to bold1 (and created second bold2)

I will update patch tomorrow - it will be in cf4

Regards

Pavel

On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 1:09 AM, Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello
>
> I wrote new styles for  psql table borders.
>
> http://postgres.cz/wiki/Pretty_borders_in_psql
>
> This patch is simply and I am think so some styles can be interesting for
> final presentation.
>
great. hm, maybe we could integrate color? (see:
http://merlinmoncure.blogspot.com/2012/09/psql-now-with-splash-of-color.html).

merlin

On 11/21/13, 2:09 AM, Pavel Stehule wrote:
> Hello
> 
> I wrote new styles for  psql table borders.
> 
> http://postgres.cz/wiki/Pretty_borders_in_psql
> 
> This patch is simply and I am think so some styles can be interesting
> for final presentation.
> 
> Do you think so this feature is generally interesting and should be in core?

Maybe make the border setting a string containing the various characters
by index.  Then everyone can create their own crazy borders.

On 11/21/2013 04:39 PM, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 11/21/13, 2:09 AM, Pavel Stehule wrote:
>> Hello
>>
>> I wrote new styles for  psql table borders.
>>
>> http://postgres.cz/wiki/Pretty_borders_in_psql
>>
>> This patch is simply and I am think so some styles can be interesting
>> for final presentation.
>>
>> Do you think so this feature is generally interesting and should be in core?
> Maybe make the border setting a string containing the various characters
> by index.  Then everyone can create their own crazy borders.
>


Why not just reinvent termcap / terminfo? :-)

cheers

andrew

On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 2:23 AM, Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello
>
>
> 2013/11/21 Merlin Moncure <mmoncure@gmail.com>
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 1:09 AM, Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Hello
>> >
>> > I wrote new styles for  psql table borders.
>> >
>> > http://postgres.cz/wiki/Pretty_borders_in_psql
>> >
>> > This patch is simply and I am think so some styles can be interesting
>> > for
>> > final presentation.
>> >
>> great. hm, maybe we could integrate color? (see:
>>
>> http://merlinmoncure.blogspot.com/2012/09/psql-now-with-splash-of-color.html).
>
>
> it is next possible enhancing - I would to go forward in small steps, please
> :)
>
> minimally (and independent on proposed patch) we can introduce some like
> "final regexp filtering"  - that can be used for this or other purposes.

Yeah.  A per field regexp would do the trick.  As you have it, I like
Peter's idea best.  Being able to specify the various character codes
makes a lot of sense.

merlin

Pavel Stehule escribió:

> 2013/11/21 Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>

> > Maybe make the border setting a string containing the various characters
> > by index.  Then everyone can create their own crazy borders.
> >
> I seriously though about it, but not sure if it is good way.

How about having a single "unicode" line style, and then have a
different \pset setting to determine exactly what chars to print?  This
wouldn't allow for programmability, but it seems better UI to me.
This proliferation of unicode line style names seems odd.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera                http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 8:45 AM, Alvaro Herrera
<alvherre@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
> Pavel Stehule escribió:
>
>> 2013/11/21 Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>
>
>> > Maybe make the border setting a string containing the various characters
>> > by index.  Then everyone can create their own crazy borders.
>> >
>> I seriously though about it, but not sure if it is good way.
>
> How about having a single "unicode" line style, and then have a
> different \pset setting to determine exactly what chars to print?  This
> wouldn't allow for programmability, but it seems better UI to me.
> This proliferation of unicode line style names seems odd.

That makes sense to me, especially if you could pass escapes.

merlin

On 11/21/2013 10:39 PM, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 11/21/13, 2:09 AM, Pavel Stehule wrote:
>> I wrote new styles for  psql table borders.
>>
>> http://postgres.cz/wiki/Pretty_borders_in_psql
>>
>> This patch is simply and I am think so some styles can be interesting
>> for final presentation.
>>
>> Do you think so this feature is generally interesting and should be in core?
> Maybe make the border setting a string containing the various characters
> by index.  Then everyone can create their own crazy borders.

I vote for doing it this way.

We would provide a default setting, and the documentation would show
other examples.  Perhaps even set up a "repository" on a wiki page or
something.

-- 
Vik

Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com> writes:
> there is other issue - simply parser will be really user unfriendly, and
> user friendly parser will not by simply :(

If simple things are hard to implement, get yourself better tools.

Each time we get on the topic of improving scripting abilities for our
interactive tool, it's always the same problem: having to invent a
scripting language with a whole parser is just too much work.

Maybe it's time we step back a little and consider real scripting
solutions to embed into psql, and pgbench too:
 http://ecls.sourceforge.net/         LGPL  Common Lisp http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/   LGPL  Scheme, Javascript,
EmacsLisp http://www.lua.org/                  MIT   Lua
 

Regards,
-- 
Dimitri Fontaine
http://2ndQuadrant.fr     PostgreSQL : Expertise, Formation et Support

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 3:33 AM, Dimitri Fontaine
<dimitri@2ndquadrant.fr> wrote:
> Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com> writes:
>> there is other issue - simply parser will be really user unfriendly, and
>> user friendly parser will not by simply :(
>
> If simple things are hard to implement, get yourself better tools.
>
> Each time we get on the topic of improving scripting abilities for our
> interactive tool, it's always the same problem: having to invent a
> scripting language with a whole parser is just too much work.
>
> Maybe it's time we step back a little and consider real scripting
> solutions to embed into psql, and pgbench too:

I'm thinking (did I miss something?) that Pavel was commenting merely
on the parsing of setting unicode border characters, not the wider
scripting of psql.  (psql scripting is a fun topic to discuss though
:-)).

merlin

On 11/25/2013 09:00 AM, Merlin Moncure wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 3:33 AM, Dimitri Fontaine
> <dimitri@2ndquadrant.fr> wrote:
>> Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com> writes:
>>> there is other issue - simply parser will be really user unfriendly, and
>>> user friendly parser will not by simply :(
>> If simple things are hard to implement, get yourself better tools.
>>
>> Each time we get on the topic of improving scripting abilities for our
>> interactive tool, it's always the same problem: having to invent a
>> scripting language with a whole parser is just too much work.
>>
>> Maybe it's time we step back a little and consider real scripting
>> solutions to embed into psql, and pgbench too:
> I'm thinking (did I miss something?) that Pavel was commenting merely
> on the parsing of setting unicode border characters, not the wider
> scripting of psql.  (psql scripting is a fun topic to discuss though
> :-)).
>

Even if it is it's totally off topic. Please don't hijack email threads.


cheers

andrew

Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> writes:
> Even if it is it's totally off topic. Please don't hijack email threads.

Well, when I read that parsing a user setup is too complex, for me that
calls for a solution that offers more power to the user without us
having to write specialized code each time.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how off-topic or hijack applies here.

Regards,
-- 
Dimitri Fontaine
http://2ndQuadrant.fr     PostgreSQL : Expertise, Formation et Support

On 11/25/2013 09:33 AM, Dimitri Fontaine wrote:
> Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> writes:
>> Even if it is it's totally off topic. Please don't hijack email threads.
> Well, when I read that parsing a user setup is too complex, for me that
> calls for a solution that offers more power to the user without us
> having to write specialized code each time.
>
> I'm sorry, but I don't understand how off-topic or hijack applies here.
>



It just seems to me to be a very big stretch to go from the topic of 
psql border styles to the topic of psql scripting support. Your use case 
would surely be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. By all means argue 
for better scripting support in psql, but I would suggest your argument 
would be better if the use case were something more important and 
central to psql's purpose.

cheers

andrew

Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> writes:
>> I'm sorry, but I don't understand how off-topic or hijack applies here.

And I just realize there's another way to read what Pavel said, which is
that *user scripts* parsing the output of psql might become harder to
write as soon as they don't control the default border style in use.

Well in that case, yes I'm vastly off-topic.

I was answering to how to parse the user setting itself, so writing C
code inside the psql source tree itself, and how to expose a fine
grained solution to that problem without having to write a whole new
configuration parser.

> It just seems to me to be a very big stretch to go from the topic of psql
> border styles to the topic of psql scripting support. Your use case would
> surely be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. By all means argue for better
> scripting support in psql, but I would suggest your argument would be better
> if the use case were something more important and central to psql's purpose.

I think I just understood something entirely different that what you
were talking about.

-- 
Dimitri Fontaine
http://2ndQuadrant.fr     PostgreSQL : Expertise, Formation et Support

On 11/22/13, 3:26 AM, Pavel Stehule wrote:
> website is related to patch for 9.3 (I add note there)
> 
> patch for 9.4 is fixed - and now with small doc

I think it would help if we considered the new border styles and the new
line styles separately.

I don't find the new border styles to be particularly useful.  They just
use up vertical screen space, which is usually more precious than
vertical space.  Is there a situation where you would find these styles
to be more useful than the existing ones?  Keep in mind that pset is
usually set permanently, so it wouldn't be practical to use a different
border style depending on how the query results shape up (like \x auto).

Now for the linestyles.  I can see how some of them are attractive, but
several of them have poor aesthetics, I think.  I don't see a reason to
accept 7 new styles just for fun.  If I had to choose, I'd consider
-double1 and -double4 to be acceptable.

On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 2:08 PM, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> wrote:
> Now for the linestyles.  I can see how some of them are attractive, but
> several of them have poor aesthetics, I think.  I don't see a reason to
> accept 7 new styles just for fun.  If I had to choose, I'd consider
> -double1 and -double4 to be acceptable.

I'm confused why we need ANY of these.  What problem are we solving
that the existing unicode style doesn't already solve?  We could
doubtless invent an infinite or at least very large number of
plausible ways to border psql output, but I don't see that as
something that has value.

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Robert Haas escribió:
> On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 2:08 PM, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> wrote:
> > Now for the linestyles.  I can see how some of them are attractive, but
> > several of them have poor aesthetics, I think.  I don't see a reason to
> > accept 7 new styles just for fun.  If I had to choose, I'd consider
> > -double1 and -double4 to be acceptable.
> 
> I'm confused why we need ANY of these.  What problem are we solving
> that the existing unicode style doesn't already solve?  We could
> doubtless invent an infinite or at least very large number of
> plausible ways to border psql output, but I don't see that as
> something that has value.

You know what I think would have some value?  An output style that emits
DocBook markup for tables, something which we could paste on the docs.
(I already use the LaTeX mode to paste in presentation slides.)

-- 
Álvaro Herrera                http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 4:48 PM, Alvaro Herrera
<alvherre@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
> Robert Haas escribió:
>> On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 2:08 PM, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> wrote:
>> > Now for the linestyles.  I can see how some of them are attractive, but
>> > several of them have poor aesthetics, I think.  I don't see a reason to
>> > accept 7 new styles just for fun.  If I had to choose, I'd consider
>> > -double1 and -double4 to be acceptable.
>>
>> I'm confused why we need ANY of these.  What problem are we solving
>> that the existing unicode style doesn't already solve?  We could
>> doubtless invent an infinite or at least very large number of
>> plausible ways to border psql output, but I don't see that as
>> something that has value.
>
> You know what I think would have some value?  An output style that emits
> DocBook markup for tables, something which we could paste on the docs.
> (I already use the LaTeX mode to paste in presentation slides.)

Sure.  I have never personally wanted that, but I see the value of it:
it makes something that's probably annoying to do right now simple.
That's a functional enhancement; this is not.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

On Thu, 2013-11-28 at 16:23 -0500, Robert Haas wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 2:08 PM, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>
> wrote:
> > Now for the linestyles.  I can see how some of them are attractive,
> but
> > several of them have poor aesthetics, I think.  I don't see a reason
> to
> > accept 7 new styles just for fun.  If I had to choose, I'd consider
> > -double1 and -double4 to be acceptable.
> 
> I'm confused why we need ANY of these.

I'm not actually in favor of adding any of these.  I was just trying to
say that any but the ones I mentioned I don't consider acceptable at
all.

On Thu, 2013-11-28 at 18:48 -0300, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> An output style that emits
> DocBook markup for tables, something which we could paste on the docs.

DocBook supports HTML tables from version 4.3 on.  We currently use
version 4.2, but we could presumably raise that if needed.